Sky Arts Landscape Painter of the Year 2019

   Once again I enter as a Wildcard artist on Thursday 4th July 2017 which was aired as episode 5 on Sky Arts. I arrived at 6.30, parked to the east of the Sage and went to registration. I had forgotten how cold in could be at this time by the river as I had neither a coat or a jumper.

    After the initial artists walk through for the cameras I took up a position on the Millennium Bridge ready to start painting. It was quite windy and several artists abandoned their location for sheltered Baltic Square. I positioned my easel under the railings to prevent it blowing away.

Ready for a 9.00 am start.

   I started with watercolour wash of cobalt blue and cobalt blue greyed with light red for the sky then naples yellow for buildings and finally a deeper blue for the Tyne.

   Once dry I sketched the outline of the building and quay in pencil. Then started gluing on the collage . Graph paper for the high-rise, vertical lined tissue for the quay, dress making pattern for the Tyne Bridge uprights and filling in the remainder with map tissue, squared tissue and decoupage text. This is the point where the cameras arrived as my paper was blowing away into the river. The director asked if I could do it again so I ended up with a little cameo on TV. After the collage had dried  I started on the ink work and transparent acrylics.

   At 12 noon the bridge tilted to allow boats to pass so we all went on to the Baltic Square. I started another collage this time cropping in to the Baltic Chambers Building. Maureen and June arrived from the Friendly Art Group from Chester le Street who were quite helpful holding the easel and picking up paper that had blown away!

Maureen's photo

   After lunch it was back on the bridge to complete the painting. Added boats in white pen and tents as if it was the Sunday market. It was a mistake to have the glue in a glass bottle which landed on the floor several times and cracked and it was only the glue holding it together- plastic container next time.

Finished painting.

Finished painting in a mount

Rosie Barnes the wildcard winner chosen at 2.30 pm

    Just down from me was Rosie Barnes the wildcard winner with her pencil sketch done with a graphite stick.
    Enjoyable day if cold at the start and sunburnt at the end and interesting to meet other fellow artists with different styles.

Read all about this episode  and others on Markingamark